But she need not have dreaded such remonstrance. There was a consciousness in Ronald's heart which kept him silent; and besides, with every word his sister had spoken, with every instant during which his examination of her, close though furtive, had lasted, increasing alarm had taken firmer hold of him. How had he been so blind? How had he been content to accept appearances in Madeleine's case? how had he failed to search and examine rightly into the story of this marriage, and satisfy himself that his sister's heart was in it, that she had really forgotten Wilmot? For a conviction seized upon Ronald Kilsyth, as he looked at his sister and listened to her, that had she been really happy, this state of things would not have existed. In the angry and suspicious state of his feelings towards Wilmot, he had accorded little attention, and less credence, to his father's confidences respecting Wilmot's opinion and warnings about Madeleine's health. He was too honourable, too true a gentleman, even in his anger to set down Wilmot as insincere, as acting like a charlatan or an alarmist; but he had dismissed the matter from his thoughts with disregard and impatience. How awfully, how fatally wrong he had been! And a flame of anger sprung wildly up in his heart; anger which involved equally himself and Lady Muriel.
Yes, Lady Muriel! All he had thought and done, he had thought and done at her instigation; and though, when Ronald thought the matter over calmly afterwards, as was his wont, he was unable to believe that any other course than that which had ended in the complete separation of Wilmot and Madeleine would have been possible, still he was tormented with this blind burning anger.
When Lady Muriel had aroused his suspicions, had awakened his fears, Wilmot was a married man; but when he had acted upon these fears and suspicions, Wilmot's wife was dead. "It might have been," then he thought. True; but would he not, being without the knowledge, the fear which now possessed him, have at any time, and under any circumstances, prevented it? It cost him a struggle now, when the knowledge and the fear had come, and his mind was full of them, to acknowledge that he would; but Ronald was essentially an honest man--he made the struggle and the acknowledgment. In so far he had no right to blame Lady Muriel.